“You too can See the genius in things?” she asked, when Mrs. Hanson nudged her to get on with the washing.
“No,” replied the matron. “I learned by rote. My great-granddam could, or so the family lore tells me. But that was a hundred years ago, on a different shore. Now you tell me: what are you doing in a factory if you have the gift?”
“Gift?”
“Your Sight.”
“It is not a gift to me,” the girl sighed. “My father was a waterman on the Chesapeake where the tobacco farmers ship out; in my eighth year, I first witnessed a slave auction there. One young man was standing on the block when I shut my eyes—his soul shone orange like embers—and the planters made their bids, one after another, until they’d conjured a thing that swallowed those burning embers in its mouth. . . . I howled so loudly, our congregation told my parents they must cast me out or be cast out themselves.”
“What happened?”
“The family went west to start a new farm. In the winter, we slept all together in the one room, nine of us and the hogs and the cow, so not to freeze. I couldn’t close my eyes, because I would See the succubae coiling around the necks of the animals.” The girl shuddered.
“You cannot be near subjugated creatures, man nor beast,” said Mrs. Hanson, recalling more of the ancient lore.
Hannah nodded. “My brothers and sisters froze anyway. All but my oldest brother, who escaped to sea. He sailed for two seasons on a whaling ship before he drowned.”
“That’s hard.” Even now, the matron feared a similar end waiting for her first and fourth sons. “But how did you come to Lowell?”
“On the day my parents received the news, I started north. I knew they couldn’t bear the sight of me any longer.” As if her own sad history could no longer interest her, the girl reached out and fingered a jar of hazel bark. “You work magic blind?”
“I grope my way in the dark.” The matron shrugged. “You See but you don’t work it?”
“No one ever taught me. And I was afraid.”
“Well. I can answer the first score and teach you what I know. On the second, I cannot help. I cannot make you brave.” Mrs. Hanson put an arm around the ginger girl’s thin shoulders, to soften the words. For truly, this was a wonder and a precious thing: to have a living Seer in her house. Mrs. Hanson blinked back tears even at the memory of the revelation.
Now the girl sat on the windowsill, masticating her plate of beans and coughing into the underside of her elbow when the phlegm and cotton dust proved too great a barrier to her lungs. She looked listless. Unsettled. Recalling Kirk Boott’s questions, Mrs. Hanson wished she had a lesson to read the girl, a scheme of protection or undetectable attack, but they had sounded the depths of the matron’s wisdom and found bottom some time ago.
And now here was Judith Whittier on the threshold, sniffing the air like a hound for whatever food might be on hand. This one. Mrs. Hanson smiled—could not forbear smiling—as she put the plate in the little bulldog’s hand. At least Judith’s name had not crossed Kirk Boott’s lips that afternoon.
She dug in where she stood, too ravenous to complain that the beans were cold. Her fist around the spoon was stout and pugnacious as the rest of her, and Mrs. Hanson wondered what they had got up to today. Out in the parlor, sounds of the usual nightly diversions had crept back into the house, and someone was picking out notes on the piano, shaping a recognizable tune.
Mrs. Hanson returned to her kneading, singing to herself.
“There came a young man from the old countree,
The Merrimack River he happened to see,
What a capital place for mills, quoth he,
Ri-toot, ri-noot, ri-toot, ri-noot, ri-umpty, ri-tooten-a.”
It was an old tune, but these lyrics told a tale not so ancient, well known to the farmers and goodwives in the hills around Lowell.
Meanwhile, the girls spoke to one another at last.
“Did I injure you?” Judith began.
“No.” Hannah shook her head at once. “No. I only—I only wonder why you treated Abigail that way? You were so cold with her.”
“She endangered the entire Union—she could have broken the strike—”
Now Mrs. Hanson gave up the final ri-toot. What was this?
“She couldn’t,” said Hannah, setting her empty plate against the table with a clatter. “None of us could. It doesn’t matter how many boardinghouses evict us, or whether our families starve, or we spend our last penny. We can’t end the strike, Judith. That’s how the spell works!”
Judith’s features, close-packed in the center of her face and best suited to expressions of determination and doggedness, nevertheless gave their best impression of astonishment. “Of course. That was the objective—we cannot end it until the owners give in.”
“And if they never do?”
“Then, when we decide—all together—we end it.”
Hannah shook her head. “You don’t realize, do you?”
“Realize what?”
“You spoke the spell.” Hannah smudged a tear off her cheek. “I didn’t know it would happen this way, but it gives you command of us. I could see it plain as day tonight.”
“I didn’t ask to be in command! I thought we were all equals in this endeavor.”
Hannah smiled, a little chuckle escaping her lips.
“What is it?”
“It isn’t a lie if you believe it’s the truth.”
Judith danced foot to foot.
“You have a very hard soul,” said Hannah.
“What?”
“I only mean—I only mean that you could go on and on, much farther than the rest of us could. Or would.” A coughing fit came over Hannah then, and she turned her head. Mrs. Hanson wanted to go to her, to thump her back and stroke her hair out of her face. Instead, she filled a cup of water and pressed it into the Seer’s hands.
Meanwhile the other girl watched, wringing her hands. “So, the other girls want to end it,” she said, “but they can’t, because I don’t. Is that it?”
“No.” Hannah breathed in cautiously, testing her lungs. When no cough exploded back at her, she continued. “They don’t want to end it, not yet. But I’m frightened for you. If we don’t find a way to win soon, you’ll be beset by enemies abroad and at home. Mr. Boott can’t fail to notice you, and the other girls must begin to tire and fear. Abigail isn’t the only operative with troubles.”
Hannah wouldn’t lie to spare Judith’s feelings; she couldn’t.
“Do you think I ought to end it?”
Upon discovering the question was meant for her, Mrs. Hanson’s eyebrows rose. “And when has my opinion mattered?”
“You’ve been in Lowell longer than any of us,” said Judith. “You’ve worked for them longest. You must know the enemy best. Can we outlast them?”
Always the little general. Mrs. Hanson sighed. “They are looking for new girls to hire, and not only in Boston. And their pockets are far deeper than yours. Can the lot of you afford to stay out a week? A fortnight? A month? I cannot promise to feed you beyond that.”
Judith’s jaw hardened.
Hannah, the reedy young thing, threaded her arm through the matron’s and put her head upon the older woman’s shoulder. Tired and aching as her limbs might be, Mrs. Hanson suddenly felt quite stout, and patted the girl’s pale hand.
“What is that song you were singing, Mrs. H?” Hannah asked.
“That’s the ballad of your friend Mr. Boott. When the Boston gentlemen wanted to build their mills, ’twas he who spotted for them and noticed the might of the Merrimack below the falls. The only trouble was, the village of Chelmsford was already here, enjoying the rush of the river in pastoral simplicity. So, up he comes to the villagers, playing no more than a sheep rancher—and buys up their land for a trifle:
“And then these farmers so cute,
They gave all their lands and timber to Boott.
“Only after the mills were built, the people of Chelm
sford knew what they’d given up.”
“A dissembler through and through,” said Judith, through her teeth.
“A clever businessman, he might say,” said the matron.
“But it’s all built on fictions and theft, isn’t it? Boott stole the land. Old Mr. Lowell stole the looms—”
What other thefts the little radical might wish to enumerate would remain a mystery, however, for Hannah interjected a question. “What do you mean, ‘stole the looms’? They’re built here.”
Unperturbed, Judith replied, “I mean the plans. Did you think our Boston overlords are clever enough to devise a machine of their own? No. Old Lowell crossed the sea just to spy on the Lords of Lancashire and copy their inventions, such as they are. The owners christened the new city ‘Lowell’ to honor his subterfuge. That’s how the power loom reached these free shores.”
If the Seer wished to know any more of this history, her inquiry was cut short, for another coughing fit overcame her. She released Mrs. Hanson in order to bend forward, her palms resting on her knees. While the matron winced at one girl’s hacking, she nevertheless caught a glimpse of the other’s face observing her friend keenly. How strange! Always in the past the parts were swapped: Hannah studying Judith as if she were a lesson Hannah meant to learn.
With a hand, the ginger girl gestured her desire for a handkerchief, and Mrs. Hanson obliged before Judith could supply hers.
“I should fetch Dr. Green,” said Judith, though the coughing abated.
“There’s nothing to pay him,” said Hannah.
“You ought to rest now,” the matron advised. Mercifully, the Seer nodded, though her gaze lingered on Judith before passing and retreating out of the kitchen and up the stairs. The other girl moved to follow her co-conspirator, but the matron caught her with a stern glance.
“Wash up those plates, will you? I’ve already started on tomorrow’s breakfast.”
Reluctantly, the bulldog moved, retrieving the plates and spoons which she and Hannah had eaten off.
“Do you know,” said the matron, as she dusted her fingers to take up rolling and smashing dough once more, “why I stuck you up in that room beside her when you arrived in Lowell, not a friend in the world?”
“To irritate Lydia at every opportunity?”
Mrs. Hanson smiled in spite of herself. “She asked for you. I’d just sent you down to the corporation to log your name with the paymaster, when she comes and tells me, ‘Mrs. H, hers is the brightest soul I’ve ever Seen. If she is beside me, when I shut my eyes, it shall be like staring into the sun that blots out every other flame. All else will be darkness and calm.’ Did you know? Did she never tell you how she manages to sleep when phantoms and demons live on the insides of her eyelids?”
The young bulldog had gone still. “I didn’t know,” she murmured.
“Think on that when you decide to keep the strike or not.”
9: The Engineer’s Tidings
HANNAH MAY HAVE FOUND a way to rest easy, but Judith slept fitfully that night. In her dreams, rows of idle machines and empty bobbins mingled with Abigail’s bald head and Mrs. Hanson’s skeptical eyebrows, Hannah’s voice and Hannah’s cough. Something had become uncorked inside Judith that day, a wellspring of soft feeling gurgling—gushing—in a dull ache. What could it mean? Judith didn’t know what to do with her hands or legs.
Mindful of waking Hannah, she tried to keep still. The room was unbearably close and warm, with six hearts pushing hot blood through young limbs, and six sets of lungs exhaling into the shared atmosphere. At last, slick as a spent stage horse, Judith threw off the coverlet and let the night chill her into dead slumber.
A man came before dawn. Florry woke the house, shouting Judith’s name until she came to the door of the dormitory and looked down. Through sleep-blurred eyes, Judith recognized the ruddy face and wide frame of Mr. Reed, the engineer of the Merrimack Mills.
“New operatives are arriving today,” he said as he stood at the bottom of the staircase, his face red in the light of the lantern he carried. “It’s a flatboat from Boston, coming down the canal with a hundred Irish or more. Mr. Curtis said I’m to check the machines, get them running again.”
At once Judith returned to her trunk, seeking the cleaner of her two dresses.
“Mr. Curtis gave me the order,” said the engineer, alternately speaking to Florry, Lydia, and the other girls who had gathered on the staircase, “and I’ve no doubt he had it from Mr. Boott. You know I’m a working man myself; I don’t hold your sex against you Union girls. But I can’t disobey.”
“Thank you, Mr. Reed, truly, for the warning,” Judith called. “Hannah, wake up! The time is come!”
There was no response. Judith jumped back, startled to find the other side of their bed empty. “Where is she?”
“She was coughing a fit last night,” said Lucy.
“I didn’t hear it,” Judith marveled. Or she’d thought it was only her dreaming.
“Mrs. Hanson did,” said Florry, stirring the fire’s embers to brighten the room. “They left the house about an hour ago. I saw them through the window. I thought only for fresh air, but they must have gone to the doctor.”
The tightness in Judith’s chest eased, but only a tick. If Mrs. Hanson had taken Hannah to Dr. Green, she must be very ill indeed.
Shucking off that worry, she glanced around, at Florry, Sarah Payne, and Lucy. Others were just beyond the room’s door on the landing. Lydia, watching and waiting. Abigail, in her borrowed cap and tear-swollen eyes.
The looms, she wanted to say. The looms are ours. They strike with us. But that was a conundrum only half-solved, and without Hannah . . .
The bells of Lowell were ringing: half past four.
“What do we do, Judith?” asked Lucy.
“We must do something,” said Abigail.
“We will,” Judith replied at once. Half a solution was better than none at all. “First, we wake every Merrimack girl we can find, tell them come to the canal.” She finished lacing her boots and tied her Union band firmly to her arm. “We can still win this.”
10: Passions
“THIS IS THE FILTHIEST scene ever witnessed,” Lydia told Judith. “Truly, only you could devise such a thing.” All around them, operatives from the Merrimack Mill were strung along the edge of the headrace, expectorating like sailors. Their spittle flew through the air with lusty Ptah!s that made a counterpoint to the creaking and grinding of the mill wheel. As often as not, the projectiles landed on the cotton lying on the flat skiffs in the canal, but the true target, as Judith had explained, was the water flowing through the wheel, the lifeblood of the mill. The girls made a game of it, forgetting that overseers and matrons had ever admonished them to maintain virtuous deportment.
“It’s all Hannah’s craft. You”—Judith paused to add her own spittle to the unnatural rain—“gave her the idea.”
“Me?” Lydia asked, after hurling her own with all the force her rosebud lips could muster.
“What you said kissing the shuttle,” Judith replied, “when we wove that first night.”
“Oh,” Lydia replied, surprised, as if she hardly expected Judith to remember a word she said. “Something about kissing no other men?”
“Yes,” Judith nodded. “Hair is the perfect vessel for oaths of friendship and camaraderie. Blood for family. But spit”—she added another drop of her own—“is for the passions. We’ve been kissing our machines for so long—”
“And you expect the machines to behave like faithful paramours?”
Judith nodded. Lydia shook her head, but she could not forbear a smile. If any girl knew the power of holding a lover enthralled, it must be Lydia.
“Hannah and I have circled every mill in Lowell, saying the incantations, bidding the looms to weave for no others.”
“And this?” Lydia asked, gesturing to the expectorating mob around them.
“To invoke the spell.” Judith smiled, leaving out that Hannah had left her wi
th no confidence of its efficacy, while the looms still belonged to the Boston owners.
“Look there!” shouted someone on Judith’s left.
The sun’s first light was paling from orange to yellow, casting its rays over a phalanx of men in working cottons, marching over the footbridge. Judith shielded her eyes to see them properly. It was twenty or more of the mill hands, to move the cotton bales from the warehouses to the carding and spinning rooms, and finally from the backlogged skiffs. Judith thought of Mr. Reed, unhappily following orders. Even now, the girls might delay the men and convince them to join their striking sisters.
She lost that hope when she spotted what looked like an English dandy among them. Mr. Boott marched at the head of the crowd in a dark jacket and pale pants—stirrupped below his shoes so as not to break the pleasing line of the leg. A magpie among wrens.
“Stop! You there! Girl! Stop that!” he shouted. Many of the girls ignored him, or were so carried away in the pleasure of spitting on the corporation’s property, they had yet to notice they were caught. Around him, the working men were a buzz of confusion and uncertainty.
The overseer, Mr. Curtis, added his own exulting shout, “Little hussies, there’s no escape for you now!”
Judith’s blood rose, though she realized at once that Mr. Curtis might, in the strictest sense, be correct. With the mill walls behind them and the men blocking the bridge, there was no escape aside from trying their luck in the canal’s current.
“I can’t swim,” Lydia informed her.
“No need,” said Judith. “We’ve done what we came here to do.” She edged past Lydia, careful not to lose her footing on the pitched stones of the headrace, and made for the footbridge. “Come along. Come along,” she murmured to the others.
The Factory Witches of Lowell Page 5
